The Art of Self Sufficiency
by The Lady Avaritia
Summary: We grow up and don't need them a little more every day.Because we can never trust anyone but ourselves. And because we never love. And because nobody loves us. -a real insight into the heads of those rich shallow kids at ouran-


The art of self sufficiency

Ouran High School. The academy for children of the rich, the beautiful and the wicked.

I wonder, sometimes, what do the teachers here think? What do they see?

All of us, so small and breakable, yet more mature than any of them, so much older than them, we are the lovely cynics, and we doom the world and ourselves.

I wonder how they feel as they see us fall apart little by little everyday? Are they sad when they see us crumble away always silent and in the shadows? They are teachers, after all, and we are they students, so what must it be like to watch us grow cold and detached, beautiful children who spew venomous words against a world of commoners which neither wants nor accepts them, and vehement hatred towards the demanding families who neither love not understand them?

What must it be like, to see us, as we're all alone and vulnerable, covered in ill-glued cracks, paper-thin useless to all but our harsh demanding parents out there somewhere, who only exists as a vague notion of requirements? And then, as they watch us come together in groups, and we all become strong and glowing again. We fall apart, our sharp edges scrape the marble ballrooms, the perfect boys and girls with a thousand deadly secrets, we build ourselves up with no help, all on our own over and over again, after each break, and we become stronger, better, smarter, sharper, our edges twist, and little by little we turn into our parents, warped ideals, warped minds, and the bored geniuses of our generation, we are glass-like, cold and reflective. So really, what's it like to walk down a hall and see a beautiful girl with sky iced eyes talk to another beautiful girl with coffee and cream eyes how she wishes for the legalization of slavery?

So sometimes, as I see the eyes of those tired, aged people, who get paid to care for us, I wonder, briefly, if our small breaks hurt them more than they hurt us. I wonder if the missing pieces are missing because they stab them right through the hearts.

They watch us grow up, and need them less and less every passing day, as we become from children with no childhoods distorted images of our adult parents, burdened with ancient venom and ready to burn down with the acid of ambition.

We need no one. We are self-sufficient. One day, when the time comes, we will have our revenge on the parents who abandoned us. The parents we never needed. Because we are enough for ourselves, and each one of us is perfectly capable of putting themselves together all on their own, thank you very much.

It's touching sometimes, how they wish they could help us. But we don't trust them. We don't trust anyone. Not our friends, not our parents, not our extended families, and never the paid help. Because we can't, not even a little. It's the little world in our little world of glamorous parties, and brilliant smiles. You don't trust anyone. Because the people who are supposed to love you don't and the people who love you are getting paid to, like all these unhelpful teachers, and in any case, we don't need either type?

Oh, yes, we can lean back, enjoy the brutal illusion of twisted affection that comes from a business partnership that is our relationship with those people. After all, our parents, who don't love us, and whom we don't need to love us, pay these people, who wish they could love us, and whose love is useless to us, to act out a perverse fantasy of genuine affection, so we could claim, at least, that we haven't grown all neglected.

The thing is… We have.

And so we go, all of us, with our not-needing, and not-trusting and not-loving-nor-needing-love, and we slowly melt like snowflakes in mud, as our smiles grow more and more brittle, and we become a little less children and a little more strong with every break.

And in our world childhood ends exactly when you understand that your only friends are the ones you pay to keep silent, and you can't ever, ever again trust your family.

Because they look us in the eye, and they tell us they love us, and they tell us they care about us, and they want us to be happy, and they pile it up with cruel accusations, and pointless demands, and we have no idea what to do, when only minutes after tearing us apart they come back with their cheap guilt and meaningless words of comfort and we can never forgive them.

And in that moment, when you realize that all you really need is the comfortable black leather couch in Arts Building, floor 3, room 45, and the kind dark eyes of the one man in your life who probably cares (though he's being paid too, make no mistake), in the moment when you face off the school psychologist, and you smile brightly and tell him that no, you're very happy, but you're a tad bit stressed, right before falling to pieces right then and there… When that time comes, you've left the world of games, and you're an adult.

So I wonder about that man as well. He sits all day in his office, and he accepts us all, one after the other, as we come with all our faults and all our insecurities, and all of our not-need and not-trust comes pouring out from every pore of our body, and our imperfections clog the room like a poisonous frog. Does he pity us, the beautiful ruined children of the rich? Does he hate us, us who have everything, but always demand more, us the greedy, the avaricious, who want and want and want because we never get enough, it is never enough, it will never be enough and all will be fine with the next arrival of our pocket money… Does he simply not care, detached, protecting himself from our pretty poisons like we protect ourselves from our angry siblings, who hate us for not warning them, until we bump shoulders on the way to the same office? Does it hurt him to see us leave every time, not better, slightly even changed, knowing that we will never trust him completely, as we collect the broken pieces and wrap them for safe keeping until we go home to glue them again? How is it like to see me secure my beautiful glowing smile on every time in front of the mirror, my deepest secret, that I am so alone in a world full of friends?

Does he look knowingly at our backs, when, away from the relative safety of his office we show a beautiful burning image, another failed cheap TV farce?

Does he talk to the teachers, as in, give Tamaki a high grade, because he's desperate to please his grandmother, and excuse Kyoya from sports class because he is suffering from too much stress and has hardly slept in three weeks, and cut Hunny some slack, his binges are a result of an extreme depression?

Because we're all a fucked up bunch of pretty rich kids, who grow up more and more every day, farther away from our families, and we're full of ourselves and our fortunes. We have money and we want more, more, more, more. It's not enough. It will never be enough. But it's sufficient. And it's fair. Because we can never trust anyone but ourselves. And because we never love. And because nobody loves us. We do not need that.

But see, in our world, that's the biggest secret: No one has quite mastered the art of self-sufficiency.

**This story feels very personal to me, as it's mostly my own thoughts with an Ouran spin. Everything is real – the rich kids I know, the private school we all go to, the tired psychologist, and the families that want but never give. So please, be kind when you drop a review.**


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